Spark of Rebellion
by ArlyssTolero
Summary: An alternate take on what could have caused the Dominators to choose to wipe out the metahuman population on Earth.


_**Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash. **_

_**A/N: Been looking to get back into writing Arrowverse projects for a while. Hope everyone enjoys this little one-shot. **_

Spark of Rebellion

By

ArlyssTolero

**Central City**

**November 1, 2016**

Calvin Hobbes grunted in pain as he was kicked sharply in the ribs, pulling him out of an uneasy sleep in the 'alleys' of the tent city where Central City's homeless population made their homes. A blinding light shined into his eyes as he glanced up at whoever it was that kicked him, and he held up a hand to block the light and try to see beyond it. "Who're you?" he asked sluggishly as he shifted into a kneeling position, bundling himself up with the worn and tattered blanket that served as his shelter from the cold wind coming off of the ocean and through the streets of the city.

"We're with a new shelter," said one of the men. "An outreach program. This entire group will be sent to the new shelter and provided meals and a hot bed. Sound good?"

"Better than freezing to death," Hobbes mumbled and stumbled to his feet, shuffling after one of the men and towards the dark vans waiting at the side of the curb. _Maybe my luck's finally changing, _Hobbes thought to himself. It was certainly about time something good happened in his life. After the past two years, nearly three, he didn't have much good in his life and he was willing to take any chance that offered at a better life. He had lost it all the night Harrison Wells had nearly blown a hole in the city with that damned accelerator of his. Ever since, Hobbes had been afraid to come near other people. It was why he slept in the alleys rather than tents. That night, something had changed in him. He had found he could absorb energy from any source, including people, through touch, and it had terrified him.

Nearly eleven months into his self-imposed exile, he had been passing a television display in a shop window that was showing a showdown between a couple of men with futuristic weapons and the lightning-infused man who had apparently been running around the city helping people, The Flash. After that night, everyone knew there were those with powers beyond the norm and Hobbes had been afraid he would be found out, rounded up and sent to some lab somewhere and experimented on to find out what made metahumans tick. He had burrowed further underground, so to speak, and become a ghost. He could barely remember his wife's smile, or the sound of his son's laughter. He was too much of a coward to end it all, to face their judgment when he met them on the other side, and too afraid to live. So, he just existed, another cog in the machine, performing day labor for money to get a hotel from time to time a hot meal when he could.

Hobbes kept his hands in his pockets as he sat in the van with the rest of the homeless being rounded up and thought that whoever ran this new shelter needed better representatives. His ribs were still smarting from the kick that bastard had given them. Only the promise of a warm meal, hot bed, and a chance at safety from freezing to death kept Hobbes from making a break for it.

_***DC***_

He should've known it was too good to be true; he blamed the cold weather and his sluggish mindset for not realizing it sooner. But now he and everyone else were being herded into a warehouse, a warehouse guarded by soldiers in black combat fatigues. The whole thing screamed black ops to Hobbes, who had been an avid reader of Tom Clancy works all his life before he became a metahuman and his life became a nightmare. But he knew better than to cause a scene. Causing a scene meant death, and that meant facing his wife and son, who he had killed when he hugged them shortly after his powers had been 'granted' to him by the accelerator and the wave of energy that had washed out of S.T.A.R. Labs. Hobbes wasn't ready yet to face his wife and son, and so he kept shuffling forward as guided by the menacing men with automatic weapons.

He briefly saw an older man, his hair white with age and wearing horn-rimmed glasses, watching the procession with a grim expression. But what terrified him and nearly made him stop was the sight of four tall, gangly forms that weren't human standing in front of a purplish 'doorway', through which the homeless were being sent one line at a time. Aliens. There were fucking _aliens_ involved in this! What the hell was going on? Where was he being sent? Another planet? A spaceship? Why was the government doing this? What did they gain?

_Other than a way to deal with the homeless population?_ A sly voice asked in Hobbes' mind, and he tried to squash that thought, but it wouldn't leave him. Countless homeless people died or vanished every night all around the world and no one thought a thing of it. People like Hobbes and those around him were invisible, the unseen and unwanted masses that those who called themselves 'good citizens' would turn their nose up at because of a handful of bad apples who gave the homeless and the destitute a bad name. The government probably thought it was a good deal.

Before Hobbes knew it, it was his turn to stand in from of the purplish doorway, and he was ordered to step through or be shot on sight. He slowly shuffled forward, having seen the soldiers do exactly what they threatened to some of the more recalcitrant men and women who had stood before the portal. He stepped forward, closing his eyes as he passed through the portal, feeling the hum of energy wash over him, only to stumble and fall on the other side as his foot collided with a rock jutting upward. He fell forward and landed on his outstretched palms, hissing in pain as the rough ground cut into his palms. Hobbes pushed himself up and stared up at a planet that filled the night sky. It was barren, dead and brown, just like his future and the future of every other person transported here.

_***DC***_

**Slaver's Moon**

**November 15, 2016**

It had been two weeks since Hobbes and the others from the 'tent district' in Central City had been brought to this slaver's moon. In that time, many of them had been sold off. Hobbes had managed to avoid being sold so far by sticking to the background. For once it had helped that he was emaciated from days spent hiding away from the world when he should've been getting food at one of the local shelters, fearing that he would bring the government's scientists down on him if he accidentally touched someone. Hobbes had kept away from the other prisoners, but they were thinning out, now, and he knew soon he would be up for sale by virtue of being the only one left.

Another round of buyers were standing outside of the cell where he and three others were still waiting to be bought. These people looked human, but they weren't dressed like any humans that Hobbes had ever seen. He knew the type, though; he'd seen enough of them come through here in the past two weeks. They were the well-to-do's of space, the elite, buying the poor of another planet for slave labor or worse. He was sure that bunch of wolf-like beings that bought a few of the healthier men and women the other day had plans other than slave labor or sexual abuse on their minds.

"We'll take the lot," the man who seemed to be in charge, his dark hair and beard tinged with gray, said to the tall aliens that had been keeping Hobbes and the others captive, a race that Hobbes and his fellow captives had come to learn were known as the Dominators by prisoners who had been here longer and could speak English due to knowing other humans. Apparently, humanity had become ingrained enough in the intergalactic slave trade for English to seep into the higher echelons as well.

It was when the Dominators were processing the newly-purchased prisoners that it happened. As part of the service, the purchased slaves were given new clothing befitting their station. Hobbes was presented with clothing suited to a laborer, and he dressed quickly, realizing too late that his arms and legs were bare of any covering. When one of the Dominators took his upper arm to guide him to the next stage of the process, it screeched as its life energy was pulled from it and siphoned into Hobbes' form, which became healthy and strong as a result of the infusion of new energy. Hobbes looked up at the other slaves and the enraged Dominators, the latter of which stepped forward, raising their weapons. Hobbes reacted on instinct, throwing up his hands in a defensive position. He was as shocked as the Dominators and other prisoners when blasts of energy shot from his palms and collided with two of the Dominators, incinerating a hole through their chests.

The remaining Dominators fired their weapons, only for those weapons to empower Hobbes even further. Growing more confident in himself and this sudden influx of power bolstering his resolve, Hobbes copied his previous actions and blasted another pair of Dominators. Focused as he was on the Dominators, he failed to see one of the men from the delegation that had purchased him approaching, unsheathing a dagger. That dagger pierced Hobbes' backside with an upward thrust, piercing his heart and severing an artery. The blade was pulled from his body as the Daxamite delegate placed his booted foot on the small of Hobbes' back and gave it a light shove. Hobbes collapsed to the ground, feeling a sense of peace wash over him. He may be going to see his wife and son now, but perhaps now he could greet them with the mindset he had used his powers for good, like The Flash did.

_***DC***_

The Dominator Overlord was troubled, a rarity in this line of work. Ever since the downfall of Krypton, the Dominator Hierarchy had controlled the slave circuit without competition. Slaver's Moon was the base of their operations for all activity in this quadrant of space, and they had just witnessed a complication that could cause their market to dry up swiftly if action wasn't taken to correct it. This wasn't the first time they had dealt with slaves gaining powers due to coming from a different atmosphere or living under a different sun. But this was the first time a slave had had powers inborn, powers that couldn't be detected because they were derived from somewhere else. The security footage of the previously-emaciated prisoner becoming healthy and strong, their weapons useless against him, had cast a pall over their meeting with the Daxamite King, Mon-El, afterwards.

The other humans that had yet to be purchased had been questioned thoroughly about the incident in the processing plant, the Dominators using their natural mental gifts to ease the information out of the human herd. The anomaly had been what was known on Earth as a 'metahuman'. It was speculated that metahumans had been 'born' due to a special facility that had overloaded the night of its activation. Many metahumans seemingly went mad with power, but one, known as The Flash, was a hero to the humans of Earth, someone looked up to and admired. Their allies on the third planet of the Sol system had not informed them of this development or suggested that some of the stock they sent them could be _tainted_ in such a manner, which suggested their servants on the human world were either dead or seeking to change their arrangement with the Dominators.

This egregious error of judgment on the humans' part could not be countenanced. Scouts would be dispatched to Earth to assess the world's strengths and weaknesses once more, including the strength of this _hero_ known as The Flash. A pacification fleet would follow, and Earth would be annexed. Their warring nations would fall one by one to the Dominators and in the aftermath, those survivors who lived among the ashes would be brought to heel and lifted up to the stars to serve as slaves. For that was all they could contribute to the greater galaxy; a servant caste.

_**A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed the story. **_

_**My thoughts of Arrow and Flash so far: **_

_**Flash has been pretty good and so far, there's nothing I can complain about. **_

_**I'm enjoying Arrow, but sadly they continue to have continuity issues. The most recent listings include Adrian Chase rather than Robert Queen being Earth-2's Green Arrow (which was established on The Flash back in Season 2) and Earth-2 Thea Queen being dead of a Vertigo overdose when Black Siren implied she was alive in 6x15 and not as 'naïve', though an argument could be made that Siren was double-speaking or just plain lying to get under Thea's skin. **_


End file.
